Ardashir answers all your questions, revealing more about the rift and the Ætherside.

Are there more questions? Or do you wish to examine my testimonies?

Who are you actually?

I have one final question...

......

The Foundation?

The Very Large Rift is so very close, Endministrator.

It shall confound you, then you shall return to me.

I remain faithful, that all dying Universes rely upon your arbitration for survival.

Till we next meet.

You brought destruction to Wuling and pain to my friends.

A full-scale war has not been declared. It isn't too late to change your mind.

I'm the one asking questions.

Ah, forgive my transgressions. Whatever my lord desires to know, I shall present it on a platter of truth.

Ask away.

Our knowledge does not exceed yours. What we did to the Rift was simple... We merely ... "opened" it.

But both you and Nefarith can wield the Æther.

For ten thousand years from Terra to Talos-II, the Terrans also wielded the Originium Arts and developed Originium industry.

But can they truly claim to know the nature of Originium? The answer is negative.

And there is something I must clarify. As a Terran, I was not born with Æther-wielding powers...

Hence, forgive me for my unsatisfactory answer.

Do they remind you of my "tricks" at the Marker Stone? I'm much flattered, Endmin.

The two are indeed alike. Both are "manifestations of Æther energy".

However, those at the Marker Stone were puppets dancing to my strings. These Blightshades are just the victims'...

Enough. Blightshades are just blighted illusions. Don't even think about trying to shake us.

I won't.

She is of a more extreme disposition. Yet strictly speaking, we are both servants of the same Lady.

As for our goal of opening the Very Large Rift, I've withheld nothing from you since the beginning.

We plan to re-create a path into the Ætherside. And you ... will try to stop us.

But I promise you that whatever I said carries no deceit. It is but my sincere wish to make you the lord of all.

Only then will conflicts lose meaning, and mindless violence be gone from sight...

And the price? More victims to fall?

Something that you of the past cannot afford. But you can change, can you not?

Ardashir, a follower of yours in the past.

Unlike fellow comrades who are now history. Cowardly, I sought survival, and found you before the "End" arrived.

Once again I offer you my salutations, Endmin.

No matter. I will not escape. Once you arrive at the Very Large Rift, you will want to see me again.

The secret is not mine to reveal... Memory has left you, but you shall witness and choose. This is how you'll trust me.

......!